Snap fasteners with dished resilient actuators of the above-described type are known. In such snap fasteners, there is provided a female member having a casing having an inwardly turned flange on the lower edge thereof defining a bottom opening, and which holds therein a resilient clamp, which has a dished resilient actuator plate which can be moved with a snap action from a convex position, to a concave position, by which action, hooks on the lower ends of legs depending from the peripheral edge of the actuator disk are moved out of an annular recess in a male fastener member to free the male member for movement out through the bottom opening of the casing. The casing may be provided with fixing pieces against the outer periphery thereof for fixing it to a layer of material which is to be held against a layer of material to which the male member may be held by a flange on the outer end of a tubular piece which is connected to the portion of the male member which engages the dished resilient actuator plate. Positioned over the top of the casing is a baffle, and the casing, the fixing piece and the baffle are clamped together by a cover which has an access opening through the center thereof through which manual pressure, such as from a finger of a user, can be exerted for moving the dished resilient actuator plate from a convex postion to a concave position.
Snap fasteners of this type have been alleged to be useful for such items as pocketbooks in which a flap overlies the main part of the pocketbook and must be secured thereto by some sort of a releasable fastening means, or such other containers as briefcases, soft luggage and the like, which require basically the same attachment of a flap to the main body of the piece of luggage. Such snap fasteners have also been alleged to be useful in clothing items, such as coats and the like, where it is desired to secure an overlying layer to an underlaying layer by a releasable fastener.
These fasteners have a simple structure and are quite reliable in operation, and they are easily brought together and secured simply by inserting the male member into the opening in the bottom of the casing, and bringing the annular edge of the male member against the dished resilient actuator plate to move it from a concave condition to a convex condition, at which point the legs are swung inwardly to move the hooks into the recess for securing the parts of the fastener together.
However, the fastener has not found acceptance in the marketplace. This is because when the dished resilient actuator plate is moved to a concave position for swinging the legs outwardly to move the hooks out of the recess, there is nothing which will cause the parts of the fastener to separate from each other. Some additional force is needed on one or the other, or both, of the parts to cause them to move apart, i.e. to move the male member relatively to the female member so that it moves out of the female member. Further, since the force which must be exerted on the dished resilient actuator plate for moving the hooks out of the recess to free the male member from the female member is in the direction toward the male member, the natural tendency is for the parts to be urged together rather than apart. Accordingly, the user is often uncertain whether the dished resilient actuator plate has actually snapped from the convex condition to the concave condition and whether the parts of the snap fastener are actually free to be separated by exerting a force on one or the other of the members to move the members away from each other.
A fastener of this type would be very acceptable if it could be actuated by a force in a direction other than in a direction for moving the parts toward each other, i.e. transversely or opposite to such direction so as enable the user to readily separate the parts after the hooks on the female member have moved out of the recess on the male member.
A fastener of this type would also be very acceptable if it had some way of immediately causing the male and female parts to separate from each other upon the actuation of the dished resilient actuator plate so that the user would know that the dished resilient actuator plate had been moved from the convex to the concave condition and that the parts were free to separate, and also to avoid the necessity for exerting an initial force on one or the other of the parts to move the parts away from each other.